Tape 8-B: LONDON VIBES

AH London.... as a Mancunian I'm somewhat compelled to hold a slightly hostile position toward the capital - the standard Manc attitude is basically "fuck you london we kick it up here, you lot think its all whippets and flat caps and the hacienda and fucking stone fucking roses when in fact we got it a ton more vibrant and bizarre than anything you got to offer AND we don't have any sceney cunts diluting the vibe because your navel gazing media never thinks about writing anything remotely provincial etc etc etc etc..."

The latest Trilogy Tapes 12" arrives at Piccadilly Records, yesterday

And I do sort of agree with that but I can't hate on London for too long or too much because it is FUCKING WICKED!!! It really is. All this Manc cultural cringe is a bit silly really - you can't really compare Manchester and London, they're two very different beasts... London is a megalopolis!!! It's a full blown world city and there are probably only 7 or 8 spots in the world like it, it's a nation state all of its own and it has a fantastic vibe and energy about it. Spend a little time in London and you start to understand the "navel gazing" - it's hard to look beyond the city because it is so engaging... I have a bunch of pals in London and I know I pretty much always have to visit them, to get them to come to Manc takes a LOT of effort because London is such a beast it holds you in with some weird magnet power (this same magnet power also manages to make money piss out of you at all times...)

Every visit to London is like this

My London pals often ask if I'll live there and the answer is pretty much no... I love the place and I love the energy but I also like living 2 hours away from it... Manchester does kick it, and for all the frustration that comes from not seeing appropriate recognition for things outside the smoke, the lack of that kind of attention also means that things can just HAPPEN and not really have to interact with the same boring homogenous cultural forces that declare hotness and notness...

If you don't know where this is I'm not telling you

Anyway, one thing that's undeniable is that London has a fucking TON of great record shops... and is one of the best places in the UK to go digging. My girlfriend is living down there at the moment so I'm down there a lot and every time I always come back with at least 1 record and usually a lot more. The last trip saw me spend a marathon session in a bargain basement and I got some absolute weapons... this mix is all bounty from my last London dig... 50p classics all the way (except for Billy Who which I got for a quid GET INNNNNN)